This City Made Us
by Tundrahawk
Summary: [Based off the new single by The Protomen.] Warped steel beams arch like the ribcage of some massive creature above his head. The skulls of a thousand Sniper Joes creak beneath him, scatter bolts like pebbles to land at her feet. It seems ridiculous to speak the Hero's name before this shadow, somehow.


"Why have you come here?" the voice booms.

Warped steel beams arch like the ribcage of some massive creature above his head. The skulls of a thousand Sniper Joes creak beneath him, scatter bolts like pebbles to land at her feet. It seems ridiculous to speak the Hero's name before this shadow, somehow.

"I'm looking for—someone who knows Doctor Light," she says instead. And, at his quiet laughter shouts, "I'm looking for his son!"

A dog barks in the silence. It's pawing at her leg, continues to paw and bark all while licking her face when she kneels down to pet it. A dog—or a machine? No, it's just its limbs that gleam dully in the dusk. Fur sticks out between the slats of metal plating that encase its torso.

"Quiet, Rush!" the voice shouts.

He emerges from the shadows. Just a man, she's relieved to see. No matter how his eyes glowed. He's been living out here a while by the state of his clothes, his boots worn to ribbons. But his face is clean shaven. Almost as young as hers.

"Is he yours?" she asks.

"Yeah," he mumbles crouching down by the armored creature too.

"Did you build his legs too?" she asks. "

"Yeah," he says, struggling to retain balance as it paws his shoulders.

"I thought the Doctor was the only one who could do things like that."

"I fixed up some of the other robots here too," he manages between its licks. With a few shushes, calms it down. "I learned from Doctor Light," he admits after a moment.

"You must've lived with him for a long time," she hazards.

"He built me. Doctor Light."

"He _built_ you?"

He rises, flings aside his poncho. Underneath, a Gatling gun. No. It's bolted to his shoulder. And the spots on his other arm where the skin's worn off, dull blue. So the Hero was no human—but a machine. A beast from the realm of Wily—turned against him! Fighting for humanity! For freedom! A thousand awestruck thoughts fly through her mind. Settling on one angry question.

"Why did you leave us?" she asks.

He turns away. Reaches the scrap pile, steps up on a cracked propeller blade as if testing its strength.

"Let me show you," he says.

She takes his hand. Even though the metal seems to shift and churn beneath her feet, although she stumbles at the sight of a scythe half-buried, its edge bruised red with blood or rust. And at the summit, Wiley's fortress rises in the night, closer than ever. Its shutters like the gaping holes of a skull burning into her. Clawed pillars reaching out for her, an army of robots buzzing around it like flies around a skeleton picked clean. But she forces her eyes downward to follow the gaze of the man—machine beside her. A bare space gleams in the midst of this robotic death. A memory stirs.

"There was a moment in the darkness," he says, "just before the blinding light. The whole world was standing there before me—just out of sight."

She sees him in the Doctor's tenement, twenty stories high. Perhaps he watched a riot just like the one that rages on the horizon now. Perhaps his hands rested on the exact pane where she stood. And the Doctor—so straight, so strong, his hair barely greying then—the Doctor must've had another version of the fairy tale that he told him. Setting the shining blue helmet on his head. Once upon a time… there was a Hero just like you…

"It was a crash that broke the silence," he says. "A thousand voices called my name."

Chanting fills her ears. _We have control! We keep you safe!_ A crowd gathering in mockery of the yellow helmeted Mets that push them back, forests of loudspeakers booming. But she seems to float above the dark mob, somehow. A figure in blue stands on a hill before them. Falls to his knees beside a cross welded together from steel beams. _We are your hope! Megman! Megaman!_ His lips move in silent words.

"Like a moth into the fire—I had to follow the flame."

Screaming fills her ears; a woman lies bloody under a Met's metal plated boots. A flash of light cuts it down. The Hero stands on the hill now, his arm engulfed in the same solar power. An orb that grows and grows like the sun, arcs off to decimate a line of Sniper Joes taking aim. And with one leap, the blue Hero gains the rooftops too. As the mob takes up baseball bats, flaming bottles against the remaining Mets, he leaps across the buildings of the city towards one goal, one mountain looming in the distance—Wily's fortress.

"I know you think you can control it," he says. "But I've seen the way the crowd can turn."

What is this memory? Two heroes clash in the clearing at her feet. One wears a shield and helmet bearing the crest of Wily. But Wily could not have built that robot. Seeing him beside the Hero, the way he dodges, the way he lifts his shield to deflect the solar blast—their maker must have been one and the same. Only the color that glows in their eyes has changed. One blue like the sky at full day. The other smoldering like a thousand mindless machines. The Hero lowers his weapon. He refuses to fight any longer.

"You're giving it everything you've got. Still they want to watch it burn."

Finally, she sees it. A little girl hoisted on her mother's shoulders, next to a man that screams the loudest of them all. _Destroy him!_ She barely comprehends the sight before her. Barely understands the chanting flooding her ears. _Save us! Destroy him!_ The words that seem to raise the Hero's weapon trembling, like puppet strings. _Kill Protoman!_ Whiteness that blinds her for minutes or more. When the dust clears, the Hero holds the other robot in his arms. He's been cut in two by the blast. His red eyes have gone dead.

She slides down the scrap heap. She steps toward the vision.

"This city made us," a Met with a cracked helmet seems to groan, rising up behind her. "This city gave us life."

Through the renewed chants of the crowd she hears it. The Hero is weeping.

"This city made us," a skinned Sniper Joe groans, staggering to its feet as she stumbles over it. "This city—ate us alive!"

She remembers. Flames, flames all around her. The Hero rises, the body of his brother at his feet. He lifts his helmet off his head. He lets it fall to the ground. He begins to walk. No matter how she cries, he won't turn back. Not even the sound of blades cutting into human flesh can turn him back. Her mother shrieks over the mutilated body of a man. Forgetting about the little girl on her shoulders, forgetting about the scythed machine that looms over them both. One slice and her mother falls silent. The little girl falls to the ground. Distantly wondering why redness pools where her leg once was. Distantly wondering why the mob, seeing no escape from the flanking machines, chooses to run towards the shots of the Sniper Joes rather than the blades.

"This city made us," they seem to groan. "But who will save us now?"

Two shots and the scythed machine collapses. In its place stands a man, his long white coat fluttering out like wings behind him. He cradles the sobbing child. Turns her face toward his chest as they move forward. His heartbeat drowns out all the screams.

"This city made us," they seem to say. "But won't you save us now?"

She steps past the Doctor. She steps past the bodies of her parents twisted on the ground. She steps by scores of soon to be corpses pleading with mindless machines. She steps past the Mets, pushing family and friends back from the scene of the massacre. She steps past the Sniper Joes gunning down anyone who darts too close to the barricades. Beyond them the Hero lingers for one moment more, pondering the burning city. She steps past Him. She steps into the flames.

* * *

Lyrics incorporated from _This City Made Us_ by The Protomen

Story cover: cover of _This City Made Us_ single by The Protomen


End file.
